MURDER IN THE EAST END by Jennifer Ashley

MURDER IN THE EAST END is the fourth book in Jennifer Ashley’s “Below Stairs” mystery series set in Victorian England. Although it’s part of a series, this is the first in the series that I’ve read. Even though I was new to this series I was still able to follow along and enjoy it. Normally I prefer my historical mysteries set in 1920s and 1930s England with aristocratic or wealthy sleuths. The amateur sleuth in MURDER IN THE EAST END, AND STAR OF THE SERIES, is household cook extraordinaire Kat Holloway. I never leaned toward books about servants far back in history because I know how hard, and occasionally cruel life could be for them. In MURDER IN THE EAST END, Jennifer Ashley doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of servants and others without money or connections but balances it with hope.

Kat’s friend, the enigmatic and charming Daniel McAdam, gets her involved in a vexing mystery that speaks of wickedness at the root of the problem. Daniel brings Kat to meet his “brother” Mr. Fielding. Mr. Fielding is many things to many different people, but he is currently primarily engaged as a vicar to a church in London’s notorious East End. Mr. Fielding is equally as enigmatic as Daniel, but with a faintly suspicious air about him. He tells a tale of children at a foundling hospital and a nurse who works there having gone missing. As he’s telling the story, for me it’s reminiscent of a Sherlock Holmes type of problem. Innocents are in danger and there may be multiple schemes involved or multiple layers to a scheme. You can’t help but wonder if there is a sinister but extremely clever Professor Moriarty type villain pulling the strings, or if there several run-of-the-mill baddies at work here. Either way – because it involves missing children, there is a tension in MURDER IN THE EAST END that seems ever present. Kat tries to balance her curiosity and drive to help with her duties as cook, and her sense of self-preservation. Danger comes from various directions and takes different forms in this book. Kat’s daughter Grace acts as a balm to Kat’s soul as she digs up some particularly disturbing things, and she also acquires a diverse network of helpers. Kat’s fellow servants, employees of the hospital, Mr. Thanos the amiable academic, the spirited Lady Cynthia and her friends – including the canny and incredibly resourceful artist Miss Townsend – all come together to find the missing children and nurse.

MURDER IN THE EAST END has a determined and pragmatic sleuth with a diverse group of friends to battle societal evils. Miss Townsend and Mr. Fielding were the characters I found most fascinating and I hope to read more about them in future mysteries. I’m also rooting for Lady Cynthia and Mr. Thanos to get together. I look forward to reading Jennifer Ashley’s next book.

A new upstairs, downstairs Victorian murder mystery in the Kat Holloway series from the New York Times bestselling author of Death in Kew Gardens. When young cook Kat Holloway learns that the children of London's Foundling Hospital are mysteriously disappearing and one of their nurses has been murdered, she can't turn away. She enlists the help of her charming and enigmatic confidant Daniel McAdam, who has ties to Scotland Yard, and Errol Fielding, a disreputable man from Daniel’s troubled past, to bring the killer to justice. Their investigation takes them from the grandeur of Mayfair to the slums of the East End, during which Kat learns more about Daniel and his circumstances than she ever could have imagined.